BALTIMORE—U.S. District Judge William D. Quarles, Jr. sentenced Robert Lee Ingram, Jr., age 58, of Frederick, Maryland, today to 10 years in prison, followed by lifetime supervised release, for possessing child pornography. Judge Quarles ordered that upon his release from prison, Ingram must register as a sex offender in the place where he resides, where he is an employee, and where he is a student, under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA).

The sentence was announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein; Special Agent in Charge Richard A. McFeely of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; Colonel Marcus L. Brown, Superintendent of the Maryland State Police; Frederick County Sheriff Charles A. “Chuck” Jenkins; and Frederick County State’s Attorney J. Charles Smith.

According to Ingram’s plea agreement, in March 2011, law enforcement officers interviewed Ingram at a hotel in Frederick, Maryland, where he was living, after an investigation revealed that a person residing at that location had connected to the Internet and run a file-sharing program from which an undercover agent was able to download images documenting the sexual abuse of minors. Ingram gave consent for law enforcement to search the computers from the hotel room. Officers began previewing Ingram’s computer and found images of child pornography. At that time the officers stopped the search and obtained a search warrant to seize and examine the remaining items. Ingram acknowledged downloading images from the internet of children engaged in sexually explicit conduct and showed agents where he had hidden an external hard drive in his room, which he used to store the images from his computer.

The subsequent search of the computer and hard drive revealed videos of children, including pre-pubescent children, engaged in sexually explicit conduct, to include sadistic and masochistic conduct and other depictions of violence.

In 2007, Ingram was sentenced in Frederick County Circuit Court to 10 years in prison, with nine years and nine months suspended, and three years of supervised probation, after being convicted of a sex offense involving sexual contact with a pre-pubescent female.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov. Details about Maryland’s program are available at www.justice.gov/usao/md/Safe-Childhood/index.html.

United States Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein commended the FBI, Maryland State Police Computer Crimes Unit, Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, Frederick County Sheriff’s Office, Frederick County State’s Attorney’s Office and the Pennsylvania State Police for their work in the investigation. Mr. Rosenstein thanked Assistant U.S. Attorney Judson T. Mihok, who prosecuted the case.